If you've been reading for awhile then you know that we have had more medical scares with Finley then we would like. It started with my 20 week gender scan when they couldn't get a good read on her brain and sent me to a high risk doctor. Then the high risk doctor thought that she was too small and wanted to keep track of her growth. Thankfully by 28 weeks they decided that she was growing just fine and I was taken off high risk. The second scare was at her two week check-up when we were told that one of her hips was clicking and she would need to have an ultrasound to see if she would need to wear a harness to correct a shallow hip. Thankfully that time it was also just another false alarm. I thought that we were out of the woods for a little while but I was wrong.
I took Finley in for her two month appointment feeling confident that it would just be another well baby check-up. They would ask me all the questions, check her out, give her a couple of shots and we would be on our merry way. While the doctor was examining little Fin she spent a lot of time checking out her back, her lower back to be exact. When she was finished she asked me if I had noticed the hair on her back. I said yes and that Aubrey had the same hair when she was a newborn. She told me that most babies do but it falls out around six weeks. When it doesn't fall out it becomes a marker for spinal abnormalities such as tethered spine and spina bifida. We would have to take Finley back to All Children's for another ultrasound and an x-ray to make sure that her spine was okay.
At first I was a little panicky, I mean really her spine now!?! When I got home I jumped on Google which usually makes matters worse but this time it actually made me feel better. All of the cases I read about where a marker was found, the child had a ton of hair or a dimple. Finley had neither of these. Her check-up was on Tuesday and the appointment at the hospital was scheduled for Friday morning. I decided to just put it out of my mind until we found out if there was really anything wrong. This was pretty easy for me to do because I honestly felt in my heart that nothing was going to be wrong. My husband Joe was the complete opposite. He didn't confess it until the morning of the appointment but he was so worried that he had barely slept and spent hours at work researching possible outcomes. I absolutely hate that he was so panicked for the better part of a week and didn't tell me about it.
When Friday morning came, I dressed Finley in something that was easy to remove and we dropped Aubrey off at Joe's parents house. Then we made the all too familiar drive to All Children's hospital. The wait wasn't long and we were in the exam room within a half hour. You would think that a baby would scream through all of this but I guess it has become pretty familiar for Fin because she didn't make a peep throughout the whole ultrasound. The x-ray on the other hand she wasn't too happy about but she calmed easily. Once it was all over and I was dressing Finley, Joe asked the ultrasound tech if she could give us her opinion. She said that unofficially she thought that everything looked fine and that she has been doing it for twenty years. That put my mind almost completely at ease but not Joe, he wasn't convinced until he talked to our pediatrician. He called me around 1 pm to let me know that the scan and x-ray came back completely normally. Apparently he had called Finley's doctor 3 times asking for the results before they had actually received them from the hospital. So thankfully Finley is in the clear again but I'm definitely not looking forward to her four month check-up.
Maybe Fin is just going to give you all her drama now and she'll end up being a calm, relaxed toddler. I'm going to see the glass half full. :)
ReplyDeleteoh man...my heart was in knots reading this. I'm so glad everything came out ok!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! I've never heard of that! I was so bummed when my daughter's hair fell out, but never knew it was actually a good thing. Glad everything is okay!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad she's okay...but it's like some doctors go looking for trouble, you know? Thinking of you all!
ReplyDeleteOh man, I hate it when drs scare you like that - glad that everything is ok! Lovely photo by the way.
ReplyDeleteSo, so glad it was nothing, mama! I would be scared shitless! In other news, this pic of you two is presh!
ReplyDeleteOh man! I'm sorry you've had so many scares! Thank goodness none of them have amounted to anything! I love the pic of you two!
ReplyDelete